


Why'd You Have to Go and Make Things So Complicated

by codswallop



Series: Burning Dog [3]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Brad is bad at feelings, M/M, Sickfic, Yes again, angsty h/c, fluffy angst tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-18
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-31 02:43:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12122796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codswallop/pseuds/codswallop
Summary: In which Brad is a total fucking creeper, Poke knows everything about everything, and Ray is completely fine, he's FINE OKAY, just leave him the fuck alone.





	Why'd You Have to Go and Make Things So Complicated

Brad hated, more than anything, the way Ray looked when he was coming down with another fever spell. He could spot it coming on a mile away by now, and the cold jolt of realization never got any easier: every single fucking time, Brad’s stomach sank like he'd been dropped down a well with no warning. 

This time it happened on a Sunday morning, perfect weather out, the whole day stretching before them with nothing to do but read the paper and go back to bed for a long lazy fuck and maybe take the bike out later on. Brad was on his second cup of coffee and didn't look up when Ray shambled in and dropped down in the chair opposite his, not for a few minutes until Brad looked up from his paper to say “Can you believe this ratfucked reporting lately on what's going on out there right now? Wait till you read this one, it's the worst yet, I'm seriously going to--” And stopped mid-rant when he took in Ray’s dulled, overbright eyes, twin cigar burns in a face that was a shade too sallow.

Ray saw his look, and the eyes turned wary. “I just woke up,” he said. “I need coffee.” He shoved his chair away and went to pour himself a cup. Kept his back turned on Brad while he drank it, leaning against the counter.”

“Ray.” 

“Yeah, I _know_ ,” Ray said. “Let me pretend, for ten more minutes, okay? Let me drink my motherfucking coffee in peace. Read your paper.”

He came back over to the table and slumped down in the chair again. Brad didn't go back to reading his paper.

“You know what’s the best?” Ray told him. “The way you always look like I've personally let you down by succumbing to another malaria attack, like I'm a weak-ass pansy who's letting the whole _team_ down and it wouldn't keep happening if I'd only try harder. That's just awesome. Makes me feel completely great.”

“That's not what I'm thinking,” Brad said. (Although was it, slightly? Maybe? Would he want to rage-punch Ray’s face through the tabletop like this if it weren't sort of true?) He got up from the table and went to rinse his coffee mug, paused there at the sink for a minute, then decided that going back to bed was the best option.

*

Ray joined him there, a half hour later. “Sorry,” he said grudgingly, then, “You're taking up three-quarters of the bed, you massive Nordic freak, shove over.” 

Brad rolled over, rubbing his eyes--he actually had managed to doze off again, sort of. “You don't have anything to be sorry for,” he said, and got his hand on the back of Ray’s neck, pulling him down for a kiss. It wasn't entirely a strategic ploy, but it did serve a dual purpose. The back of Ray’s neck was only marginally clammy, not overly warm yet, but Brad could feel faint tremors starting up at the top of his spine.

“I'm calling Bryan,” he said, stretching his arm out for his phone with his nose still pressed into the hollow of Ray’s neck. (His pulse rate was up a trifle, maybe, but it could be the kissing.)

“You are not!” Ray sounded scandalized. “For fuck’s sake--it's Sunday morning, he’s not my fucking doctor anymore, and I don't even know that it's another spell this time. I’m coming down with a cold, I think.” He sniffed and then fake-coughed.

“It's _late_ Sunday morning, he's _a_ doctor, he lives two streets away, and I trust him,” Brad countered. “And you've never had a cold in your entire life--your immune system’s turbocharged from being raised in a soup of trailer park chemicals and goat shit.” He picked up the phone. “I'm calling him.”

Ray tried to grab for the receiver, which Brad held easily out of his reach. “Don't be an asshole. Jesus. At least let me be the one to talk to him--you're not my fucking mom.”

“I would have drowned you in a barrel at birth if I were,” Brad told him. “I'll dial the number, you talk.” 

Ray glared daggers, but took the receiver. “Hey,” he said, when Bryan picked up. “Naw, it’s Person, Brad’s too busy sucking his own dick to come to the phone. Yeah, I got wasted here last night and stayed over.” He darted a quick look at Brad and raised his eyebrows. “So listen, I'm being forced at knifepoint to report to you that it's apparently my malarial time of the month again, even though it's absolutely no fucking business of yours and you're well within your rights to tell me to fuck off and go to the clinic.”

There was a lot of cursing at the other end of the line, which Brad could hear pretty clearly. Ray shot him another look: _Told you._ Bryan’s voice turned interrogative at the end of it, though, and Ray said, “Uh...just since this morning. Last night a little, maybe. Not bad. Just some chills so far. No, but look, you really, really don't have to, Doc--” Brad jabbed him in the ribs, and Ray shoved him away. “All right, well, Colbert says you do have to, but that he owes you a case of beer and a BJ if you do. Yeah, thanks, man, I'm totally looking forward to it, I love spending my Sunday mornings on medical bullshit, too.” 

“So what did he say?” Brad asked, taking back the receiver.

“He says he doesn't want your diseased mouth anywhere near his junk, but that he’ll take a case of Guinness. What? You were right there listening to every fucking word. He said he’ll come check me out, he’s on his way, he was going out anyway and he doesn't mind taking a fifteen-minute detour. Happy now? It's on you to clean up any obvious signs of recent assfucking before he gets here, you know.”

*** 

Brad knew it made no sense for him to feel less edgy the minute Bryan walked through the door, but he did anyway. He went to make another pot of coffee, mainly for something to do while the doc talked to Ray in the living room. It wasn't much of something to do, though, and he ended up drifting over to lean in the doorway with his third cup of coffee for the day and observe. 

Ray had his shirt off and he looked terrifyingly skinny in this context, but it was still somehow the most reassuring thing in the entire world to watch Bryan checking him over, steady hands and calm voice. Ray lay back without complaint to let the doctor prod at his abdomen, obediently and without making any wisecracks, which meant he was probably already feeling a lot worse than he let on. Brad watched Bryan’s face--useless, he knew, the man didn't even own an expression other than Pissed-off Deadpan--and then Ray’s, which was...complicated. Especially when he glanced up and saw Brad watching from the doorway.

“Fuck off, you creeper,” he said. “Seriously, Brad, not cool.”

Bryan looked up, too, and jerked his chin at Brad toward the door, so there was nothing to do but retreat to the kitchen. 

“I told him I think he can weather this one out at home,” Bryan said, when he passed through on his way out a few minutes later. “Long as you're keeping an eye out. He's been taking the medication, right? He should call in to the clinic tomorrow, they’ll probably want to check his bloods, but they won’t keep him overnight if it's not a bad one. Keep him hydrated, ibuprofen for the fever, call me again or run him over to the docs on base if it gets up over a hundred and four or doesn't ease off in a couple of days.”

“I thought the drugs he's on now were supposed to keep him from having any more attacks,” Brad said. “When does this end?”

“It ends when it ends,” Bryan told him unhelpfully. “He was totally run down when he started on the new meds. It might take time to cycle through his system.” He gave Brad one of his rapid-assessment looks. “How are you doing with all this? You look tense as fuck. I’d write you a script for Valium if I thought you’d take it.”

“Do I look like a bleeding pussy communist hippie?” Brad said automatically. “Fuck off, go play golf or something.”

“Yeah, you're welcome,” Bryan said, and left before Brad remembered to offer him a cup of coffee.

Ray was still on the couch, stretched out with his arm over his eyes. He'd put his hoodie back on. “Fucking creeper,” he said without moving when Brad came into the room.

“I've watched Doc put ointment on your ball rash from going commando in your MOPP before,” Brad reminded him. “When did you turn all modest?”

“You are _not_ that stupid. We’re back in civilization again now.”

“So?”

 _“‘So’?”_ Ray lifted his arm off his eyes to glare at him, then dropped it back down. “So I'm not a piece of equipment you need to make sure is in working order for your team anymore, you idiot. Plus we live in a place with fucking doors in it again. I used to watch you take a shit out in the open every day, but I don't come into the bathroom and stare at you while you're doing it now, do I?”

“All right, I get it. Jesus, Ray.”

“No, you don't get it. You don't get how much it fucking sucks to be sick and have you crawling down my throat every time I sneeze. It's bullshit.” Ray kicked the sofa arm, hard.

Brad froze for a locked minute, heart racing, thinking _this is how you’re going to lose him, too intense, run away now before he beats you to it._ He let the urge to slam out pass through him. Then he dropped to his knees next to the sofa and planted his nose in Ray’s hair. “Hey,” he said. “I'm sorry. I worry about you. I can't help it.”

“I know,” Ray said unhappily. “I fucking hate it, though.” He nudged Brad’s head off his and looked up at him, his eyes still smudged with impending febrility. “I don't want you looking at me like I'm a busted Mark-19, I want you to look at me like you want to fuck my brains out.”

“I do want to fuck your brains out,” Brad told him. 

“Yeah?” Ray stretched up and bit him softly on the throat. “So do it, then.”

“What, now?”

“Yeah. Now’s good. I'm sure as shit not going to feel like it later.”

“You're sure you’re up to it?” Brad couldn't help saying skeptically.

Ray pushed himself halfway up and kissed him, twisting a fist into Brad's t-shirt to pull him closer. “Listen to me,” he murmured. “I want you. I want your dick, I want you filling me up so I can't feel anything but you inside me all hot and hard, making me come till I scream.” He pulled back a little and studied Brad’s face. “Yeah, that's better,” he said. “Come on, let’s go.”

*

Brad almost stopped when he got two fingers inside of Ray to prep him--he was _hot_ inside, and Brad could feel the tremors racing through him that didn't have anything to do with being turned on. Ray was already grinding down on his fingers, though, setting a rough and frantic pace. “If you stop now, I will murder you and fuck your dead body,” he told Brad, and bit down on his shoulder. “More,” he gasped. “Please, Brad--” His voice broke, and he shuddered down hard on Brad’s hand.

“Calm down,” Brad told him, withdrawing his fingers all the way and then pushing them back into Ray’s body slowly, watching him bite his lower lip and whimper. “We’ll get there. Relax.”

*

Ray cried out loudly when he came--not screaming, exactly, but not far from it--followed by a string of expletives and then giddy, relieved-sounding laughter. Brad had to grin, despite the fact that Ray was starting to shiver for real now, and the sensation of it when Brad was still cock-deep inside his body was nothing short of bizarre.

“Go, keep going,” Ray gasped out. “Come on, finish, I want to feel you come inside me.”

But Brad couldn't do it, he found, even though he was hard as fuck and Ray was still thrusting down around him, hot-tight-slick and quaking like a vibrator on low. He knew it was anatomically infeasible but he couldn't get over the fear that he could break something inside--he flashed back to Bryan’s hands pressing into Ray’s stomach, carefully feeling for inflammation--and that was it, he had to pull out. He stripped off the condom and jerked himself quickly, three or four hard strokes before he groaned and began to spill, spurting into his hand.

“Or you could totally ignore me and do it your way,” Ray said, amiably, too fucked-out to care. “That's the Colbert I know and love.”

The way he tossed that word around made Brad feel like he'd just swallowed ice by accident. Ray did it a lot, lately, seemed like--never a declaration, always couched in casual insults and banter, but it had to be kind of on purpose. Didn't it?

 _Love you, too,_ Brad didn't say, fearing again to break something deep. It'd probably come out sounding sarcastic, or weird, so instead he cupped Ray’s jaw and kissed him. “Your teeth are chattering,” he observed after a minute. “You should get some clothes on.”

“Always with the sweet pillow-talk,” Ray sighed, but he pulled on his sweats and hoodie when Brad passed them over. “Hey, just thinking...you should go out for a while, you know?” 

Brad paused in the act of locating his own briefs. “Go out where? You need something?”

“I need the absence of Bradley Colbert monitoring every aspect of my existence for the next few hours,” Ray said. “Oh, come on, don't look like that. You know you want to be out on your bike today, anyway. Wind in your hair, bugs in your teeth…”

“I'm not leaving you on your own right now.”

“You should, though.” Ray’s tone was getting less playful. “I mean it. Go. It'll be good practice for you.”

Not ice, this time. Something colder than ice, something that stuck in his throat like a stone.

“I don't mean like ‘oh, you asshole, you're shipping out on me,’” Ray sighed, curling away from him and pulling up his hood. “I just mean...it's gonna happen. Get used to it. We’ll both live, probably. Hopefully.”

Brad still couldn't think of a word to say, but Ray began rambling on again after another minute. “You could wire up a Ray-cam to follow me around the whole time you're deployed, maybe. Or, I know, pay Bryan to give me a daily check-up and livestream it on the internet for you. The guys on your team will be all like “what’s that, gay porn?” And you’ll be like “nah, man, that's my boyfriend’s medical report, fuck off…” 

“All right,” Brad said, standing up swiftly and yanking on his t-shirt. “You win. I’m going for a ride.”

*** 

It felt good to ride reckless and solo, good to be outside in the warm air and speeding away, away, away. He could almost forget everything for a couple of hours

_(boyfriend??)_

and just exist, no words, no worries.

_(we’ll both live, probably)_

_(hopefully)_

He could just keep driving up and down the coast all day, maybe. Why not? But he circled around and decided to drop in on Poke’s Sunday afternoon thing instead. Family barbecue, domestic as fuck. Poke always invited him, and Brad always said he’d try to stop by, but almost never did.

“Iceman!” Espera hung an arm around his neck and rough-knuckled his hair. “Grab you a cold one, dog, the party’s on now! Hey, Pappy, Rudy, come look at this piece of trash that just blew in!”

Brad hadn't reckoned on anyone else he knew being there, but it was too late to flee. And it was good to be with them, relaxing in a sunny yard with Coronas in their hands and a bevy of small Espera cousins and nieces running happily amok in the background while they shot the shit. Poke was being kept busy running the grill and playing the host and piggybacking rugrats, so it was a relief to have someone to talk to.

It wasn't until well into his second beer that Brad noticed what they were carefully not asking him. He told himself he was being paranoid, but he didn't think he was imagining the look that passed between Pappy and Rudy right before Rudy finally said, “How’s your sidekick doing, brother? I haven't seen him since it all went down.”

“Damn shame,” Pappy added.

Brad stalled briefly for time by taking another swig of Corona. Hesitation would be a concession of some kind, though, so he strode ahead into the minefield. “Still on the mend, I guess. Still kind of a wreck. Physically a wreck, that is. He’s, uh, taking the whole thing in stride. I think.”

Pappy shook his head. “I know he was thinking of hanging it up anyway, but--”

“He told you that?” Brad was too taken aback to guard himself.

“He told everybody that.” Pappy looked so sympathetic that it made Brad itch to flee again. “Everyone but his TL, that is...makes sense, if you think about it.”

“Huh,” Brad said. “Little cocksucker.” 

Rudy reached over and gave Brad’s shoulder a massaging squeeze. “How are _you_ getting by, papa bear? It's rough when your number one goes down. When Pappy here was out of action with his foot, I felt like I'd lost a limb.” He grabbed Pappy’s shoulder with his free hand, fondle-mauling him and Brad both at once.

This wouldn't be weird, Brad told himself, if only his head were in the right place. He’d always wondered a little about Pappy and Rudy, though. Rudy let go of Brad now to wrestle Pappy into a full-on affectionate headlock, and Pappy yelped “Hey! Cut it out, you’ll spill my beer!” but he looked like he was loving it. Rudy stopped and turned his attention politely back to Brad, though, and Brad realized they were still waiting for an answer to Rudy’s question.

“It's, yeah, it's fucked-up,” he said, which was probably safe enough. 

“We’re just glad you're looking out for him,” Pappy told him, and Rudy nodded and reached out to clasp Brad’s shoulder again, leaning in close.

“It's all good, brother. You know that, right?”

“What’s all good?” Poke interrupted, joining them. “Need another round yet?”

“I've gotta head,” said Brad. “Walk me out?” Gentlemen,” he added to the others, flipping a salute at them.

“You look wigged, dog,” Poke said. “What were they saying to you? Oh, but hey, I forgot to ask--how’s the Ray-man?”

Brad managed--heroically, he thought--not to throw the empty he was still holding through one of Poke’s garage windows. He tossed it into the recycling bin instead, with enough force to hear it smash. “Still wrecked,” he sighed. “Still taking up space on my sofa. Bryan was by this morning, though, said he'd be fine.”

“That's good,” Poke said dubiously. “Yeah?”

“Sure,” said Brad. “It's great. Nice set-up you’ve got here.”

“It's all my lady,” Poke told him, looking proud nonetheless. “She's too good for me, man, you don't even know. Have you seen her today? She's running around, but I know she wanted to say hi.”

“Just for half a second. So, you and her...you just got right back on track, huh? Soon as you got home?”

“More or less, yeah. Sometimes it's a bumpy landing, but we both just roll with it.”

“How do you stand it, though?” Brad asked. 

“Stand what? Being apart so much, you mean?”

Brad didn't answer. He wasn't going to look over at Poke, didn't want to see what kind of side-eye he was on the receiving end of now, or any other kind of understanding or sympathetic or confused look he might be getting.

“Letters,” Poke said finally. “Don't know if you noticed, but I wrote to her damn near every day. Told her every stupid thought running through my head, and she wrote back, too. Even if we both had to read them all in a bunch, least we were kind of on the same page once I got back. And the sex letters...oh, dog.” Brad risked a glance now, and Poke looked positively starry-eyed and twitterpated, clearly not thinking about Brad at all. “The sex letters are the motherfucking bomb. My wife has an absolutely filthy mind, and I love her for it. The combat jacks she gave me…”

“Too much fucking information, Poke.”

“You asked, my man. You gotta hide ’em real good, though--you don't want any shit-for-brains lance corporal digging them up and reading them out to his whole platoon.” Poke did give Brad a look then. “Theoretically, I mean.”

“Right,” said Brad. “Theoretically.”

***

The TV in the bedroom was blaring loud cartoons when Brad got home, but the pile of blankets in the bed didn't move when he switched the set off and turned on the bedside light. Brad put down a supersized bottle of Gatorade next to the lamp, peeled back the top few layers of blankets, and palmed Ray’s forehead.

“Hmmmn,” Ray said, opening his eyes just a slit. “Hey. I was just dreaming about you.”

“Uh-huh. Good or bad?”

“Weird, like scary-weird. We were on this reality show and the way you knew who the next person voted out was that their face would completely disappear, and I lost you for a while and found you crouched in a corner and you wouldn't turn around. I almost pissed myself. Fuck, I didn't piss myself, did I?”

“Nope,” said Brad. “And here I am. Face intact. Time to lay off the reality TV and drink some Gatorade now, okay?”

Ray’s half-open eyes were incandescent, glittery-hot in the light of the lamp. “What flavor?”

“Fierce Grape.”

“No Fierce Lime?”

“Not today,” Brad said, unscrewing the lid and handing it over. “The limes all pussied out, I guess.”

“Those little _bitches._ ” Ray sat up enough to guzzle half the bottle before Brad took it away from him again.

“Whoa, enough. You’ll puke. I don't want fierce grapes all over my linen.” Brad pulled off a few more layers of blankets and comforters. “You're not cold anymore, are you?”

“Fuck no.” Ray was struggling to get out of his hoodie, and Brad lifted it off him, surveyed the rack of his ribs critically for a few moments, then headed out to the kitchen where the row of prescription bottles was neatly lined up on the windowsill above the sink. Primaquine, chloroquine, extra-strength ibuprofen, and Brad scooped out some chocolate ice cream into a dish and brought it all back to the bedroom.

Ray swallowed the pills but shook his head at the ice cream. “You know all this shit kills my appetite.”

“Too bad,” Brad told him. “Eat it anyway. You look like a ghost.” Ray cut his eyes between Brad and the ice cream dish, doing _fuck off_ things with his eyebrows. “You want me to feed it to you?” Brad offered, or threatened, dipping up a spoonful.

Ray shook his head again, but he took the offered bite, and then another. “You're the one worried about your linens,” he said around the second mouthful. “Fierce Grape and chocolate--this’ll be _real_ colorful coming back up.”

Brad decided to risk it, and kept feeding him bites, but after a few more spoonfuls Ray put a hand up, fending him off. “Seriously,” he said. “No can do, Sergeant.” He turned his back, shivering slightly again. “Put the TV back on again, okay? It's distracting.”

He did it, but turned the volume down about six notches and changed the channel to PBS, frowning a little when Ray failed to complain. 

*

Brad woke with a jolt a few hours later. He’d drifted off on top of the covers, telling himself he'd just close his eyes for a minute, but it was two in the morning now and Ray was fighting with the duvet, cursing it out in restless syllables of fever-language. 

“Hey,” Brad told him. “S’okay. Shh. What do you need?”

The worst thing isn't the moment Brad sees his eyes at beginning of another spell and knows it's about to happen again. It was this, right now: Ray looking straight at him and urgently saying strings of syllables that made no sense whatsoever. This was what the well-drop feeling was all about, the knowledge that this was coming down the pike.

“All right,” Brad told him. “I'm on it. It's fine. You're fine. Wait here a minute, okay?”

He got up--warily, but Ray didn't make a move, so he left the room and swiftly assembled his artillery: second round of ibuprofen, two cold washcloths and a bowl of ice water, thermometer, the phone near at hand in case he needed it. 

It was a while before he could get Ray calm enough to swallow the pills and keep the thermometer under his tongue for long enough to get a reading: just shy of 104. Not high enough to pester Bryan again or drag Ray out to the clinic in the middle of the night. Instead it was cold cloths that turned warm after minutes and talking calmly and patiently through and over and around the strings of word-vomit for an hour and a half that felt like twelve, until finally, fucking _finally_ , Ray looked at him with eyes that actually seemed to see him and said “Shit, homes,” very quietly, and that was all.

He went silent after that for so long that Brad thought he'd passed out, and he started to drift, too, but then Ray shifted again and said “Homes?” and he snapped to attention, on full alert again. 

“Oh, fuck,” Ray breathed, looking at him. “Brad. I’m sorry, man. Don't look like that, I am so fucking sorry. Go back to sleep, please please please, I will slit my fucking wrists if you don't go back to sleep right now.”

Brad made him drink more Gatorade, instead, and checked his temperature again--almost down to 101 now, but it would spike up again around dawn, most likely--before lying down for a nap.

“So fucking sorry, homes,” Ray was still saying. “I’m never doing this to you again, I swear to God, I promise this was the last time. It's not happening again. Ever.”

“Okay,” Brad said. “Shut up, Ray. It's all good, I love you, go to sleep.”

*** 

Brad skipped PT the next morning and watched Ray sleep for an hour instead, a reckless indulgence that he managed to convince himself was necessary. He'd always loved watching Ray sleep, even when they were deployed, although he'd managed to convince himself for a long time that it was just satisfaction in the knowledge that his driver was getting sufficient rest, and relief at the sudden absence of noise. (This hadn’t explained the way his eyes had kept wanting to track back to the sight of Ray’s eyelashes dark against his pale cheekbones, though, which was how he’d eventually begun to suspect he was in terrible trouble.)

In sleep, Ray was totally his in a way he wasn’t at any other time, not even when they were fucking and Brad was owning him with his whole body, making Ray beg and call out his name. Asleep, Ray was vulnerable and soft-looking in a way he never, ever was when awake--and Brad was in over his head for wide-awake, bullshit-spouting, predictably unpredictable Ray, too, but this was different; this made something in his chest go fluttery-soft and clench up rage-protective at the same time, until he thought he’d cave in on himself with the intensity of it.

Probably Ray was right. He was a fucking creeper. 

It was nearly eight-thirty now, and he was expected at a team leader meeting at oh-nine hundred. There was no getting around it, and no chance Ray was going to do anything but sleep in a puddle of cooling sweat for the next few hours anyway, so Brad dashed off a quick note and left it next to the bed, pinned down by a fresh bottle of Gatorade. 

_TL mtg 0900. Call clinic when you read this. I can drive you there in pm._

He thought about Poke’s letter-writing advice and hesitated over the remaining blank page, but in the end he couldn’t think of anything to add but a scribbled _xx, B_. Well, it was a few more months until he was deployed again, probably; he still had some time to work on it.

*

Ray was still asleep when Brad came back to the apartment around lunchtime, or he’d gone back to sleep, anyway--the Gatorade bottle was empty now. 

“Hey,” Brad said, shaking his feet. “Did you call it in like I said?”

“Appointment at fourteen hundred,” Ray said without opening his eyes. “Time is it now?”

“Twelve-thirty. Better hit the shower.”

“Fuck that,” Ray said. “I’ve got eighty-two more minutes to lie here in my own crusty sweat-stank. Wanna join me?”

“When you put it like that, _fuck_ no,” Brad told him, but he yanked off his boots and stretched out on the bed next to him regardless. He liked the smell of Ray’s sweat, actually. Liked the way Ray looked with his hair in damp spikes and sleep-creases stamped into his skin. Liked the fact that he was speaking in intelligible sentences most of all. It was over, basically, and maybe that really had been the last time; he could hope.

“God, you’re going to miss this, aren’t you,” Ray muttered, and Brad couldn't quite read his tone. He thought about it. He’d miss it the way he missed combat, he guessed: not _at all,_ and yet yes, entirely, and with the haunting fear that he’d be rendered useless and superfluous without it.

“How are you feeling?” Brad asked.

“The usual post-malarial I’ve-been-run-over-by-a-fucking-tank limp-dicked dogshit malaise,” Ray said. “Maybe a hair less limp-dicked than usual. I cycled through it pretty fast, anyway, huh? Could be Doc was right and they won't keep me chained to a shitty infirmary cot overnight this time, for once.”

“I hope not,” Brad told him, sincerely.

“Fuck, I hope _so_ , for your sake.” Ray turned his head and squinted over at him. “Did you get any sleep at all?”

“Some,” Brad said. “Enough.”

“Bullshit.”

“I'd sleep _now_ , if you'd shut your fucking mouth for two seconds.”

Ray broke into a relieved, exhausted-looking grin at the return to casual abuse, which made Brad need to roll over and kiss him.

“That's fucking _sick_!” Ray told him, sounding one hundred percent delighted. “Oh my God, I have to taste like three-week-old testicle cheese right now, and you _still_ can't keep your dick off me. You actually do love me, don't you?”

And Brad goddamn choked, again--he could actually feel himself freeze up, worse than his first time with his weapon trained on a probable armed insurgent and he couldn't make his fingers work for thirty endless seconds.

“Jesus, Iceman,” Ray told him. “It's all right, don't have a seizure. You don't have to fucking say it--I know you do.”

“Fucking A I do,” Brad managed, and Ray grinned again, less exhaustedly this time, so it was probably actually okay, for now.


End file.
